Ryan yawned,stretching his arms as he raised himself out of bed. It was a Saturday. A day free from school. A day of generally perfect paradise. He rubbed his eyes, yawning again. I feel different. He thought. He glanced at his hands, confused about their appearance. They seemed older. Somehow more worn, thicker, and stronger. No more like the hands of a 14 year old boy. He hopped out of bed and rushed into the bathroom. His black hair was longer than it had been the day before. It was shaggy, like a lion's mane. His cheeks were covered in a think layer of stubble and a small beard that jutted out from the edge of his chin. He gasped and ran his hand over his face. Practically leaping our of the bathroom, Ryan ran downstairs. As he entered the kitchen, he3 saw his parents sitting down beside the table.
“What's going on?” he blurted out.
His parents stared at him, confused. “What do you mean?” asked his mom.
“Why am I so old?” he paused. “What happened? I was just 14 yesterday!”
His dad replied, “Yes, it must seem like that. I feel the same way. To me, it was only yesterday that I was 14. For me, that was 40 years ago. But for you, it was only 10. Silly boy.” he laughed.
“Ten years ago?!”
“Aye. That's right.”
Ryan turned around and grabbed his coat. He burst out the front door, running down the sidewalk.
He went left, toward Rayon’s market, when suddenly he spotted a black cloaked figure in the shadows.
As sinister aura hung about the place where the person, or creature, stood. A glittering silver sword hung, swaying, from its left hip. Then as it opened its mouth, an earsplitting screech pierced the night, chilling the marrow of Ryan's bones.
He swerved around and ran in the opposite direction. The creature stayed where it was, unmoving. Ryan ran up the street a ways to the school. He became worried when he saw nobody there, but then remembered that it was a Saturday, he began to walk back home. His anxiety decreased and had almost abated when he got back to his home.
When he reached his house, he stared in fear at its appearance.
Every window was blackened, as if an explosion had occurred. Shattered glass hung around the area, glistening shards upon the green grass. The door itself hung from its hinges, ripped in two by some strange, demonic force.
Ryan dashed up the steps and walked among the wreckage of his home. The inside of the house was even worse than the outside. As he entered the kitchen, he saw the most horrible, terrifying thing in his entire life.
Amidst the ruins of his kitchen, three sharpened knives were sticking into the hardwood of the kitchen counter. Upon those knives were heads. Real heads. His parents heads sat on two of them. Their eyes were open wide with shock, their tongues hanging limply out of their mouths. And, worst of all, was the third knife, which held another head atop it. His baby sister's head sat perched on top, streaked with blood.
Ryan glanced around the kitchen and saw the rest of his terror. Across the room were his families bloody, steaming entrails. In the sink, he saw pieces of their bodies. Pieces that had been chewed and eaten on with razor sharp teeth designed for shredding flesh.
He felt like retching. Then he turned around to survey the damage on the rest of the house. As he walked, a sickening, squelching sound bounced out from underneath his foot. He looked down to see a heart, most likely his sisters, sitting there, the shape and imprint of his boot in its center.
Revolted, he began looking around the house again. Just then a terrible screech split the air behind him. He whirled around to see the black creature he had seen earlier standing there, a half eaten heart in its left hand, a bloody sword in the other.
Jumping over the couch, Ryan flew out the door, the creature trailing him closely behind. As he landed on the sidewalk, his left foot tripped over a stone, sending him sprawling.
The creature jumped in the air, landing on top of Ryan's chest. He screamed as the creature began chewing on his face. Blood flowed down his face. So much pain clouded his mind that his vision began to blur and forced him to see things that he wasn't sure were real.
A vision of all his childhood friends appeared before him. All around his body, his friends stood, melting into puddles. The flesh melted off their bodies into hissing puddles on the ground. Blood poured down their hideous, deformed faces. Blood sprayed into Ryan's mouth, choking him.
More pain shot into him as the creature began slashing at his chest. Then his eyes themselves exploded in a bubbling display of liquefying flesh. He screamed, blood gushing out of his mouth in a red fountain that caught the light in horrific angles. Then, as he died, everything around him seemed to explode into light as he was swallowed up into darkness.
